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Speaker 1: com m z y dot com. Welcome to brain Stuff
Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot com where smart Happens. I
Speaker 1: am Marshall Brain with today's question, why do hurricanes seem
Speaker 1: to move as if they have a mind of their own?
Speaker 1: And why do they follow such peculiar tracks. Hurricanes that
Speaker 1: threatened the United States start their lives over the Sahara
Speaker 1: Desert in Africa. They move out over the Atlantic Ocean
Speaker 1: to build into tropical storms and then hurricanes. While they're
Speaker 1: over the Atlantic near the equator, hurricanes are pushed toward
Speaker 1: the United States by trade winds. Trade winds are very
Speaker 1: consistent westward wind ends near the equator. Once the storm
Speaker 1: rises up towards twenty five or thirty degrees latitude. The
Speaker 1: top of Florida is at a latitude of thirty degrees,
Speaker 1: the trade winds are no longer a factor, and local
Speaker 1: weather over the United States has a big influence. Winds
Speaker 1: along the East Coast tend to blow in a north
Speaker 1: or northeast direction, and there's also the eastward blowing jet stream.
Speaker 1: The northern winds often cause a storm to make a
Speaker 1: sudden right hand turn and track right up the east coast.
Speaker 1: The jet stream can cause storms to approach the east
Speaker 1: coast and then back off. Any number of fronts or
Speaker 1: pressure zones may be in place over the United States
Speaker 1: as the hurricane comes in, and these systems have their
Speaker 1: own winds and can influence a hurricane as well. If
Speaker 1: a storm tracks from the west and doesn't get far
Speaker 1: enough north to lose the effect of the trade winds,
Speaker 1: it will instead continue westward into the Gulf of Mexico
Speaker 1: with those trade winds and land in Texas or Mexico.
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